


run fast

by magictodestroy



Series: to your bones [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: CSA, Dissociation, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Ging, and they need to see therapists themselves, as do i, cw: implied/referenced csa, cw: suicidal thoughts/actions, ging doesn't know how to be a good person, i like side characters, kaito has to deal with trauma, kaito is bigender, let me give them all depressing backstories, neither ging nor pariston are liscensed therapists, pariston and kaito talk, psychotic character, pyschosis, that are fuckeddddd up, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-05-19 02:26:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14864894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magictodestroy/pseuds/magictodestroy
Summary: Kite's life. Non chronological.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

‘You were screaming again.’ Ging hands Kite a mug of black coffee.

Kite takes it, bleary eyed and sweating. His hair clings to his damp neck; his clothes are soaked through.

Ging stares out the window at the darkened city. Kite sits beside him, weak, propped up with pillows. He sips the cold coffee and shivers.

Ging sits close to Kite, so they’re shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He touches his hair.

‘You should take a shower.’

‘With me.’

Ging follows him to the bathroom and sits on the toilet as Kite strips. The floor tiles are blue, and Kite’s blue night clothes blend into them when he drops them on the floor.

‘I fucking hate it.’ Kite puts the shower on hot and lets it burn his skin. He stands, hands pressed to the white tiles of the wall and lets the water wash over his back.

‘Yeah,’ Ging says. He bites his lip.

The water washes down the drain. The water moves the bright green shower curtain. It feels nothing like rain.

Kite stops the shower and wraps himself in a red towel. He leaves his clothes, and Ging follows him out. They sit on the bed together and Ging strokes Kite’s soft, damp hair.

‘Do you want to die?’ Ging says to Kite’s hair. ‘Are you gonna kill yourself?’ Ging says to Kite’s hands.

‘No,’ Kite says. ‘I don’t want to fucking die. I want to live. I want to live until I’ve had every wrong righted. I want to live until I can’t fucking remember them. Until I can’t remember fucking anything.’

‘Okay,’ Ging says. He holds Kite’s hand. ‘You’re really brave.’

Kite cries. Kite cries, and his shoulders shake, and his sobs fill the room and turn the silence into something bitter and too elongated.

Ging holds Kite, arms firm around him. He says, ‘I’m not gonna let you go.’

Kite sobs, and his sobs turn into a wail, and a dog starts to bark, and Kite falls forward, crumpling over his own knees, shaking and silent.

Ging holds him, and his breath is hot on Kite’s ear, and he says, ‘I’m gonna keep you safe.’

And Kite cries because he doesn’t know what safe is so he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel.

 

 

 

 

 

Kite wakes up at noon and Pariston is sitting on the balcony, dressed in white and lilac, petting the dogs, eating a croissant.

‘Good morning,’ Pariston says.

‘Morning,’ Kite answers and stumbles up to get dressed. He puts on a shirt and shorts and gets a mango smoothie from the fridge and takes it out on the balcony. ‘Where’s Ging?’

‘Ran out without an explanation.’

‘Okay.’ Kite sits on the chair and puts his feet on the railing. His toe nails are black, dotted with sparkles like stars. He stares at them dully, sipping his smoothie.

Pariston smiles pleasantly. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Okay.’

The trees are green and so soft. The leaves rustle in the breeze, sweeping up and down.

Pariston places his hand on Kite’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?’

‘Sure.’ Kite sips the smoothie.

Pariston stares out the sky. ‘Ging said you had a nightmare.’

Kite doesn’t say anything. He wishes Pariston didn’t know that.

‘I have nightmares.’ Pariston laughs. ‘I didn’t get a childhood, so now I’m trapped in it. Isn’t that stupid?’

Kite nods. He doesn’t know what to say. Pariston is strange and abrupt. He switches between gentle and wicked.

Pariston feeds the rest of the croissant to the dogs. ‘I have an eating disorder.’

Kite nods again.

‘I killed my parents.’

Kite looks back at him, over his shoulder.

‘What about your parents, Kite?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kite says. ‘Guess they sold me.’ He puts his empty glass down.

Pariston hums and sips his coffee. His hair glints in the sunlight, and his eyes gleam. He looks sweet and shy, but his eyes have a malicious spark.

Kite draws his legs up to his chest and hugs his knees.

‘Did Ging say when he’d be back?’ Kite asks finally.

‘No, he just ran off all excited about something. Who knows when he’s coming back.’

Kite pets the dogs. Kite tries to keep a scream inside of his throat, and it runs up his nose and burns his eyes.

Pariston touches Kite’s hair. ‘Beautiful.’

Kite looks back at him again. The scream makes his brain dizzy as it rattles around inside his skull.

‘God, you’re just falling apart.’ Pariston gets up and looks down over the edge of the balcony. ‘Do you want to die?’

‘Why do people ask me that?’

‘Oh? Did Ging ask you? I didn’t know he was that observant.’

‘Uh huh.’ Kite strokes his dog’s ears.

‘It’s because you look half dead.’

Kite looks down. He knows he’s too thin, with eyes set too deep, sockets showing.

‘That’s because I almost died too much,’ he says. ‘Not because I want to fucking die.’

‘No wonder Ging likes you.’ Pariston pulls out cigarettes and a lighter. He stares at them and takes a cigarette out, holds it up, drops it. It falls through the air and lands on the grass below them.

Pariston leans over the balcony, and then suddenly he falls.

Kite screams.

They’re six stories up.

Pariston laughs as he lands, soft as a feather, arms outstretched like wings. He smiles up at Kite.

‘Did I scare you?’

Kite sobs because his heart is beating too fast, and he hates being scared and weak.

Pariston comes back up in the elevator, unlocks the apartment door. He sits beside Kite on the balcony and pats his shoulder.

‘Don’t cry now.’

‘Fuck you!’ Kite screams. He shoves Pariston away. ‘What the fucking hell was that!’

‘I don’t know,’ Pariston says.

Kite shudders. The trees are so green.

‘I wish you would leave me alone.’

Pariston hugs him, and he’s so close, and he smells sweet.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, baby,’ he says. ‘Hasn’t Ging ever done that?’

Kite shakes his head. ‘Ging doesn’t like to scare me.’

‘Ging is sweet to you. What kind of spell do you have on him?’

‘I don’t,’ Kite says. He turns and hugs Pariston. ‘I don’t have anything on him...’

‘You don’t have anything, baby.’ Pariston strokes Kite’s hair. ‘You poor, poor baby.’

They go inside and lie together on the sofa and watch tv, and Kite clings to Pariston even though he’s angry at him because he wants someone to hold him. Because he’s scared and pathetic and so used to being touched, but not used to being touched gently, and Pariston is gentle and strokes his hair and back and rubs his thumb in circles over his shoulder blades.

Kite closes his eyes, lets the laugh track buzz in his head. He doesn’t concentrate on the jokes or the stories that he doesn’t understand. He concentrates on Pariston’s heartbeat, on his slow breath, on the way his hands move up and down his body, gently caressing him.

‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ Pariston whispers. ‘I didn’t know you’d think I was going to die.’

Kite nods and holds onto him.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Pariston kisses the top of his head.

Kite likes that. It makes him feel small and loved, like a pet. He wants to be loved. He wants to fall asleep in Pariston’s arms and wake up to him smiling, smelling sweet, pretty and nice.

He’s never going to get that. Not from Pariston, who always turns around and becomes wicked. Not from Ging, who holds him and says he’ll never leave him, but is always gone when Kite wakes up alone. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a couple days. Once he was gone for two weeks, and Kite bought his own groceries with the money Ging had left and prepared for the day he’d be back out on the street. But then Ging came back with a bag of gold laughing about the adventure he’d been on. And he said it was fun, and Kite forgave him.

Kite stretches, and Pariston moves him so that they’re both more comfortable. Kite lets him stroke his hair, lifting it and letting it fall down again. Pariston is gentle. He cradles Kite’s cheek with his long hand and says, ‘It’s a lazy kind of day.’

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

He’s too young to be in bed with a grown man. He's naked. He lies still, watching the snow fall outside. His hair is tangled. He has a glass of water on the bedside table. He sips it once in awhile. It’s always cold in winter, but it’s gotten colder now, and he can’t imagine being alive if he was out there.

Kite glances at the man next to him. He’s a selfish monster, but Kite can’t help but feel grateful to him for letting him stay inside. He wishes it were under different circumstances, but nobody is that nice.

His name is Nit. He has hair on his chest and a red beard and he pushes his tongue down Kite’s throat, but he lets him eat out of the fridge and has kept him here since Tuesday.

He calls Kite a doll. He smacks him and calls him baby.

It was late as fuck when he found Kite stumbling through a snow storm. Kite’d been kicked out of his latest hiding spot by three men who threatened to eat him and didn’t want anything he pleaded to give them. Kite was trying to find somewhere else to hide. It was getting too cold, and the temperature was dropping.

And Nit had grabbed him, mistaking him for a young lost woman, in the dark and the snow. Someone worth saving. It wasn’t until he’d dragged him into the light of a flickering lamp that he’d seen Kite’s wild eyes and ragged clothes. Searched him up and down.

‘Please,’ Kite had said. ‘I’ll do anything. Don’t let me die out here.’

 

Nit has fucked him seven times between then and now. He likes to hold Kite by the hair and call him names and ask him questions that he can’t answer and laugh at him when he doesn’t know what to say or how to read. He calls him stupid and holds him by the hair and makes him look out the window and asks him if he wants to go back out there.

Kite wipes a tear from his eye. He’s not going to cry. Not now. Not even if Nit is sleeping and he might be able to get away with it. He looks at his hand stretched out on the worn blanket. Nit is stupid and poor and probably has a lousy job where his boss calls him names and shouts at him. He probably can’t get anyone to date him or marry him. He’s probably going to grow old and bitter and toss out beer cans onto the street.

But for now he’s the man who’s lying six inches from Kite, asleep. Kite thinks again about killing him. But it’s too risky. Nit’s strong. If he woke up when Kite was trying to kill him, Kite wouldn’t make it out of there alive. And staying alive is the most important thing.

Kite reaches for his water, but Nit grabs him by the leg, so Kite has to laugh, and smile, and roll into his arms. He smiles down at Nit and bends to kiss his chapped lips.

Kite shivers in his arms, and Nit says, ‘let’s get you warmed up.’ And Kite nods and watches the ceiling.

 

 

Kite wakes to golden light. It’s warm, and the window is open. Kite sits up. He’s in another hotel. Ging travels a lot. He takes Kite with him and shows him off to the hotel clerks like he’s some sort of prize.

Kite gets out of bed and goes to the shower. He showers quickly, and goes out onto the balcony, wrapped in a towel, hair up in a messy bun.

Ging waves at him from the garden. He has his laptop open underneath a tree. Kite waves back and lets his hair down so that the ocean breeze lifts it. He sits on one of the chairs and wonders why, even here, even now, the cold of winter and the feel of rough hands follow him.

He has nothing to do, so he goes down to the beach. It’s not far from the hotel, and it’s crowded on such a nice day. He finds a spot to put down a towel and lies on it, face shaded by a large straw hat.

He burns easily. Ging finds this funny. He scolds Kite if he doesn’t wear a hat and helps him rub sunscreen on his back. Kite pulls off his leather sandals and redoes the sunscreen on his feet – just in case.

The waves are beautiful. The water clear or dazzling blue. Kite leaves his towel and his bag and wades into the water. He’s wearing pink crochet shorts and a white tank top, and he leaves them both on.

Ging taught him to swim a year ago when they were just getting used to each other. He lifted Kite into his arms and carried him into the water, let him float while being held. Let him hold onto him when he was scared.

Now Kite swims out into the sea. He swims out and there become fewer and fewer people, and the water gets a bit cooler, and still he swims out. He swims out until there is no one around him, and the beach is just a strip with colourful dots on it, and he’s stretched out in the water, alone.

Alone.

And even there. Even in the warm tropics, alone, free, untouched and untouchable, he feels fingers on him. They crawl like bugs. They follow along the soft nerves of his body. They invade the parts of him that were meant to be his and his alone. There is no escape.

Kite dives.

Ging didn’t teach him to go underwater. He didn’t tell Kite he had to breathe out from his nose, from his mouth, oh so softly, when he jumped into the sea. Kite would come up each time, nose burning, coughing, choking, mouth full of water, feeling like he would drown.

Ging would frown. ‘Let’s try again.’

Kite had to look it up on his own, reading on how to jump underwater from pages on the internet. He learnt how to first go down in the shallows, breathing out slowly. Ging watched him from the shore or from further out in the water, bobbing where he’d swam. He didn’t understand why Kite needed to learn that. Should just come naturally. He’d dive down again and again while Kite sat cross-legged in the shallows, learning how to breathe.

In the deep water, surrounded by fish and sea creatures, watching the glint of the sunlight tumble through the waves, Kite draws himself. His hair billows around him, every part of him is weightless. But here too, they find him. He can’t escape sweat and spit and the sudden heat of cum.

He’s too far out to reach the bottom, and he comes up again, into the world where even light is heavy.

 

‘Have fun?’ Ging asks when Kite’s come back in the evening.

Kite nods and steals some of the olives Ging is eating. He pops them into his mouth one after the other and chews around the pits.

‘Get dressed,’ Ging says. ‘We’re going out for dinner.’

Kite pulls on a pale blue sundress. It has white flowers along it and ties in the back. He brushes his hair and wears lip gloss.

They go to a restaurant and Ging orders them both wine, and Kite shows his ID that says he’s nineteen.


End file.
